All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 1: We Were Sisters

Six Weeks Earlier...

"Ma'ma expects you in the spire." Water dribbled from where the knife split the wood of Arin's bucket. She hadn't even flinched when I threw it. "Now." The door swung closed behind her.

On a pile of hay, Mook lifted his giant black head to yawn. A short wine escaped his nose as I pushed him away. "Some guard dog you are. Did you even hear her open the door?" He groaned and readjusted as I bent over him, his ear fur tickling my kiss. "Useless beast." Mook's name was technically Tyn, after the Goddess of War, but we were all quick to realize the only war he'd ever fight in was between him and the gang of raccoons who kept stealing his buried bones.

"Gods, how much did I drink last night?" I rose, hay sticking out from my snarled tawny braid. A sharp pain guided my attention to my forearm where a long line of freshly inked runes blinked at me. Or more likely, I blinked at them. "Oh, quite a lot then. Right."

Outside in the bitter air, the season of Náre leaned into Ideostara, the sun barely parting the frosted fog. Two steps out the door and a chill crept up on me like a silk cloth slipping over my skin.

At the end of the walkway, the road forked. To the east Srisset's citadel split the sky in two; to the west lay the training fields. Therefore, the east led to Ma'ma and so I went west. Whatever ire I'd earn from the decision felt like future me's problem.

I followed the dirt path up a winding hill and found a seat beside a knotty oak while Mook pawed at morning butterflies. Below us, the wide-awake women of the Heerth practiced in perfect rows and moved with practiced finesse under the command of their perfect general. Many worked with hooked ax and shield, others with sword, some with bows, and a few with spears. Whatever the warriors wielded, sword or some other weapon, they acted as one unit under the sun; its rays displacing the morning mist and cresting over a legion of leather armor and chainmail.

In the center, a warrior named Bodlin with curled hair the color of bronze swung her sword around as if it weighed nothing. Her wide brown eyes focused on an invisible foe. Now, could I see her eyes from the hill? No, but I was familiar with the way they crinkled at their corners and lit devilishly with anticipation during certain occasions. Bodlin and I were known to enjoy many such occasions.

From a distance and without closer inspection, the Heerth appeared unimposing with their mismatched uniforms and varying body types. No warrior could be mistaken for another, a conflict of height and weight, of age, of skin tones, and hair styles, and tattoos. But these were not the only differences between our army and those across our boarders. No, beyond their appearance, the vast majority of those conscripted were women. Some women shaved their heads, others knotted their hair. One woman had runes carved into her gnarly, pale knuckles. Another wore metal arrowheads for teeth. Samulia, a friend of my sister's, had locs bouncing off her shoulders on one side and golden swirls inked onto her rich, umber scalp on the other. And then there were the warriors like, Arin, who preferred a braid and simple leathers.

Anyone outside of the Eleven Realms might see our army and laugh for it was nothing like the lines of clones other nations fed and bred. But when those women elicited their practiced cry as one, when they moved at the command of their general as one, there was no mistaking them for what they were: highly skilled, heavily disciplined, and entirely divine. It was as if the Goddess of War had trained them herself. And some believed she had.

At the army's center stood the Heerth's general, Gavi of Kin Aegir, but you wouldn't know it without being told. She wore the same mismatched battle leathers as her subordinates. She practiced aside them. She delegated and observed and held space for differing opinions. She led. Because in the Heerth, rank was indicated by sheer presence and command, not flourish. They taught that a leader was never above anyone, but beside them.